Potter also said that Swan’s ac­tions amounted to cru­elty to an an­i­mal and in­cluded tor­ture, mu­ti­la­tion and ma­li­cious be­hav­iour.

“I don’t know what came over me,” ABC cited Swan’s re­marks from one of his sen­tenc­ing re­ports.

“It’s dis­gust­ing. That per­son in the video is not me.”

The Joon­dalup Mag­is­trates Court in West­ern Aus­tralia handed Swan an im­me­di­ate 12month jail term, seven months of which were sus­pended.

Swan pre­vi­ously pleaded guilty to two an­i­mal cru­elty charges.

Ear­lier in the week, the court sen­tenced Swan’s co-ac­cused, a 26-year-old Perth man, to two years in prison for a se­ries of an­i­mal cru­elty of­fences, which the court said dis­played “mon­stros­ity”, ABC re­ported.

Ac­cord­ing to govern­ment sta­tis­tics there are about 45 mil­lion kan­ga­roos in Aus­tralia and the num­ber is grow­ing rapidly, nearly dou­bling the hu­man pop­u­la­tion, now at 25 mil­lion.

Most an­i­mal wel­fare is reg­u­lated at the state or ter­ri­tory level. — Reuters